Daily Report

F-35 Fire “Isolated” Incident

An F135 engine "blisk," a fan disk with integrated blades, like the one shown here, was to blame for the June 23, 2014, F-35 fire at Eglin AFB, Fla., officials announced on July 14, 2014. Staff photo by John A. Tirpak.

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Too-tight tolerances between an F135 engine
“blisk”—a fan disk with integrated blades—and the surrounding engine casing
caused friction that started
an F-35 fire at Eglin AFB, Fla., on June 23, Pentagon officials said Monday.
The incident led to the grounding of all of the Defense Department’s F-35
strike fighters. The event was an isolated incident, rather than a fleet-wide
flaw, Pentagon acquisition, technology, and logistics chief Frank Kendall told
reporters at a Farnborough air show press conference. It was “not a systemic,
major design problem,” he said, suggesting the grounding could be lifted at any
moment. Program Executive Officer Lt.
Gen. Christopher Bogdan told reporters the piece in question is the
third-stage integrally bladed rotor. All 98 in-service F135 engines have been
checked, and no others have the same problem, he said. Some “rubbing” between
the spinning blades and the casing lining is acceptable, Bogdan explained, but
in this case the fit was too tight, causing “micro-cracking” in the solid-piece
blades and creating excessive heat build-up. This caused the engine to “come
apart,” he said. “We have … a body of evidence now that we think is ample … to
fully understand what happened,” he asserted.
(DOD release).

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